Penny Piva

Capers Penny Piva

Hazel has a secret. All she wants this summer is to hang around the beach with friends, but her aunt surprises her with an awesome trip to Italy. For any other 17-year old girl, Italy would be a dream come true, but Hazel?s dream is much closer to home. In fact, it?s right next door, where the girl she?s crushed on for years is moving. Unable to confess the real reasons for wanting to stay home, Hazel is whisked off to Europe. They settle in the Apulia region where Hazel meets Aunt Vix?s circle of friends: Rocco, Nunzio, and Isabella, a girl so beautiful she takes Hazel?s breath away and makes that beach vacation a distant memory. Together they create a summer of discovery, fun, and romance. But friends and lovers are not all Hazel discovers in Italy; she and her new friends are trapped in the middle of a string of tourist robberies that jeopardize Aunt Vix?s work and Hazel?s secret. Together the group finds the key to solving the robberies, all while Hazel realizes the key to her own happiness. And maybe that happiness means being honest with her family, her friends ? and most of all herself ? for the first time ever.